


Texts From Every Night

by orphan_account



Category: DCU, DCU - Comicverse, Justice League International (Comic)
Genre: Alternate Canon, Angst, Friendship, Gen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2010-12-19
Updated: 2010-12-19
Packaged: 2017-10-14 20:43:00
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,343
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/153268
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/orphan_account/pseuds/orphan_account
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Catching up at work after being dead isn't fun or easy, but try explaining that to your best friend. Boostle buddy gen.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Texts From Every Night

**Author's Note:**

> Written for dytabytes for Boostlethon Winter 2010.

_get your ass over here. guy's harassing a pretty bartender and about twelve seconds from getting arrested and you can't miss him pulling his 'but i'm a space cop!' routine again._

Ted squinted at his phone. This was the fifteenth time Booster had texted him in the last hour, and he was getting tired of replying "NO." He had a mountain of paperwork piling up on his desk, and his assistant Angie would kill him if she came in tomorrow morning and saw the mess exactly as she left it at five. The problem was no matter how many things Ted went through, the pile never seemed to get any smaller. Oh, sure, his Outbox was piled high now, too, but the other stuff never went away. It was like someone had put a magic curse on his desk.

Maybe they had. Ted had enemies, didn't he? He was a superhero, after all. But most of them didn't know that Blue Beetle (the elder, less helped by alien magic one) and Ted Kord, CEO of Kord Industries, were one and the same, and even if they did all know, making more boring work for him seemed too cruel. Just killing him outright was more their style, merciful as that would be right now. Ted chuckled, then reminded himself not to say that to Booster later. Booster was still a little sensitive over the whole "sometimes best friends die" thing, which Ted couldn't really blame him for; after all, Ted had no memories of the two years that he lost and really no long-term repercussions from them either, other than the mountain of contracts that needed his review and signature. Booster, understandably, didn't like to be reminded of that time, even though without Booster's help and that nifty rip in space-time, Ted wouldn't even be here.

Here being in his office.

On a beautiful summer night.

At ten o'clock.

Ted's phone chimed with another text message.

 _you suck as a best friend. how long until jaime's legal drinking age again? i can just exchange one beetle for another, ha ha ha._

Wait, why was he supposed to be grateful to Booster again?

One more text: _j/k. you know i love you. ps - can see right down bea's shirt, trying not to get caught, don't want to die._

Booster was definitely going to die.

Another chime: _ow. she hits hard. sure you can't join us? i'll buy you a beer, even those wussy low-calorie light ones that you like._

Ted texted back "NO" again, and tossed his phone across the room. He was going to finish this if it killed him.

+

The next morning Angie smiled and thanked Ted as he walked into his office, and Ted felt the momentary glow of awesome boss-ly pride until he saw that the desk that had been blessedly clear when he finally left last night was piled up high again. Ted reconsidered his cursed-by-supervillains desk idea. Hell, this was so evil that he was starting to think they'd all teamed up. No single person could be responsible for this level of cruelty.

Angie ducked her head in and handed him a coffee cup. "Sorry to do this to you again," she said. "Carl from Accounting stopped by first thing this morning and said these were all urgent."

Ted sighed. "It's fine. I guess that's what happens when you finally come back from sabbatical."

"Just don't go disappearing on us without notice again," Angie warned. Seriously, there was no respect in the superhero business. Ted felt a sudden kinship with Rodney Dangerfield, something he'd never recommend to anyone.

After two cups of coffee, Ted managed to get to work, and had actually managed to make a slight dent in the accounting mess when his intercom buzzed.

"What's up, Angie?"

"You have a visitor."

"If it's anyone dropping off a metric ton of paperwork, I'm not here. I bought a small island and will be living out the rest of my days there. It's beautiful and there's a casino and plenty of loose women."

"Can I come?" Booster asked over the intercom. "I promise I'm empty-handed."

Ted laughed and a second later, Booster spilled into Ted's office, recoiling instinctively from the mountain of paperwork.

"To what do I owe the pleasure?" Ted asked, peeking over a stack of stock projections for the coming year.

"Is that pile of paper talking to me?" Booster replied.

Ted stood up. "Don't be an ass," he said. "I'm a little swamped here, if you couldn't tell."

"Yeah, I can see that. Isn't this the information age? Aren't we supposed to be doing all of this stuff on computers where you could let your work stack up without fear of being crushed by it? You'll never catch up to my time at this rate."

"Oh, don't worry," Ted said. "I have plenty of e-mail to go through, too. Never a dull moment around here. What's up?"

"Nothing," Booster said. "Just wanted to see if you could take a break for lunch."

Ted raised an eyebrow.

"Oh-kay, I'll take that as a no," Booster said. His face fell a little.

"Maybe some other time," Ted said, feeling sorry all of a sudden.

"When?" Booster asked. "Because this is the second time in as many days that you've blown me off."

And with that Ted's bit of sympathy for Booster disappeared as quickly as it had shown up. "I don't know," Ted said. "It's not like I'm whooping it up somewhere. We don't all have zero responsibilities."

"I have responsibilities!" Booster threw back. "And 'whooping it up'? I'm sorry I know how to loosen up occasionally, _Grandpa_."

"I know how to loosen up," Ted grumbled.  
"Do you? You know, I spent two years wishing every day that you were still alive, and now that you are, I'm wondering why I did." Ted's mouth dropped open, and Booster winced immediately. "Wait, no, I didn't mean that --"

"No, no! I get it. It's good to know that I don't live up to the ideals that dead me did. Get out, Booster."

"But --" Booster said.

" _Leave_ ," Ted said, whirling around to face his window. He didn't turn around again until he heard his office door open and shut again.

+

A full day of meetings and signings later, Ted finally got to leave at a somewhat reasonable hour, but he didn't feel too triumphant about it. The fight he and Booster had had that morning was rolling around in his head, and it bugged him (no pun intended) that he kind of thought that Booster was right. Ted Kord wasn't a workaholic; he wasn't someone who chucked his friends aside just so he could have a clear desk. Plus, he missed _fun_. He was still readjusting to a life where people had moved on from expecting him to come back, even though he hadn't even realized that he was gone. Maybe all of this was affecting him more than he let on.

Ted heard his phone go off on the other side of his apartment, and he ran to answer it, tripping over a coffee table leg in the process. He was hoping for Booster, but surprisingly the message was from Beatriz.

 _We had a very sad gold man bothering us for hours today and I know it was your fault. The least you can do is let us yell at you for awhile._

"Damn it," Ted muttered, but he sent back a message agreeing. Once Bea told him where he was, he realized he'd have to take the Bug to get there fast enough, but the hassle was worth not having her setting his front door on fire.

About an hour later, Ted walked into a mostly empty bar, only to find Beatriz, Tora, and Guy all waiting for him at a table. They all had their hands folded seriously and grave expressions on their faces (other than Guy -- Guy was sneering, but Ted wasn't sure he even had any other expressions). It felt like he was an alcoholic walking into an intervention at the least appropriate venue ever.

"Hey, guys," Ted said, plastering a wide smile on his face. "Fancy meeting you all here."

"Cut the crap, Beetle," Guy said. Well, that was certainly to the point. Ted only felt a little better when Beatriz reached across the table and slapped Guy upside the head.

"So, I think Fire already told you why we asked you here," Tora said. She patted Ted's hand gently. "Not that we don't love Booster, but it's a little difficult to listen to him rant about you and how you've changed for several hours straight."

"Yeah, so apologize to him. Or make him apologize to you. I really don't care which," Beatriz said.

Ted shrugged. "It was a stupid fight. I was stressed because of work, he said something stupid, I yelled and made him leave. He'll get over it in a couple of days."

"He said that you're a jerk who wouldn't know how to have fun if fun was something birds crapped from the sky," Guy told him.

"Vivid," Ted said, rubbing his eyes. "I know how to have fun! I just got wrapped up with work. You might be surprised to learn that things tend to pile up when you haven't been to work in a couple of years."

Tora smiled gently. "But that's exactly it," she said. "You were gone for two years. Booster wasn't. When I was gone, I was nowhere, but when I came back, I had to deal with the way everyone moved on without me." Ted sometimes forgot that he and Ice were buddies in the Formerly Dead Club. "Or how some people --" Her eyes cut across the table to Guy. "-- thought I did things I never had. It was hard for me to readjust, too. But the thing with Booster is he never forgot you, not for one day."

"He's the one who kept your memory alive," Beatriz interjected. "It's tough for him to have you here, but _not really here_. You get it?"

"I get it," Ted said. "I do! But I wasn't perfect... you know, before. Me and Booster, we used to fight all the time! Sometimes I was a jerk, sometimes he was, sometimes we both were. But in the end, we were always best buds. It always got better."

"And in time, he'll remember that, too," Tora said.

"In the meantime, apologize," Beatriz said.

Ted nodded. "Okay."

"And buy us all beer," Guy said.

"Go float," Ted said. He stood up and flipped Guy off. "I've got a friendship to save."

+

 _can we talk?_ Ted texted Booster, once the Bug was in the air and flying home again.

It took a little while, but Booster's _okay_ came through just as Ted was about to touch down on the roof of Booster's apartment building. Good thing, too, because the Bug was pretty hard to miss when it landed on your roof, and Ted wanted to make sure that he was annoying Booster's neighbors for a good reason. He rappelled down the side of the building and swung in through Booster's window, grinning at Booster as he pulled his cowl off his head.

"You could have just knocked," Booster said, reaching for his remote and switching the TV off. "Also, doorbells. I hear they're great inventions."

"Overrated," Ted dismissed. "Lacks drama." He plopped down next to Booster on the sofa. "So, I'm here to apologize."

"Apologize?" Booster asked. "I was the one who said --"

Ted held up his hands. "I know what you said, and it was stupid, but I know you didn't mean it. I wanted to apologize for being a boring dick lately."

"Well, then you have to let me apologize for being a thoughtless dick before."

"Deal," Ted said, holding out his hand for Booster to shake. "So it's agreed: we're just a couple of dicks."

"Big change that is," Booster said, and Ted laughed.

"Well, I'm going to try to be less of a dick to you," Ted said, putting his feet up on Booster's coffee table. "You were right, though."

Booster pushed Ted's feet off his table. "I often am." He paused. "About what?"

"That I don't want to be stuck in an office fifteen hours a day. That coming back from the dead doesn't mean I can't find the fun. That you're right that I missed out on a lot, and I want to be filled in on that, and I need you to help me with that. That you were the one left behind, and I forget that. You were right about a lot of stuff."

"Oh," Booster said. He bit his lip. "I'm really happy you're not dead."

"Duh," Ted said, rolling his eyes. "Obviously. I'm the greatest friend you've ever had."

Ted expected a punch to the shoulder or a high five or maybe even a hip bump, though those were hard to do while sitting down. He didn't expect Booster to launch himself over to Ted's side of the couch and envelop him in a bear hug so tight that Ted had trouble breathing. He didn't mention that when Booster let go again, though.

"Next time you're doing something cool, don't forget your best bud, okay?" Ted said.

"Never," Booster promised.

+

The next Friday, Ted was facing his greatest enemy: yet another pile of paperwork. It was nearly eleven o'clock and there was no end in sight; truly, this battle spelled the end of the Blue Beetle. Suddenly, Ted's phone chimed, saving him by the bell.

 _out with guy and he's a jerk. about to get thrown out of a bar and the drunk bastard wants to go to a park. wanna go with us to feed the ducks bread soaked in vodka?_

Ted looked at the pile of paper. The sheets rustled at him threateningly. Ted stuck out his tongue at them and grabbed his coat, running out of his office, texting Booster on his way.

 _how could i say no?_


End file.
